Addiction to access turns the media into collaborators
Politicians offer “exclusives,” and news outlets become more compliant
Ants living in the acacia tree help protect it by attacking herbivores that try to eat the leaves or bark. Meanwhile, the acacia tree provides the ants with nectar.
In biology, this is called symbiosis, a mutually beneficial relationship.
In political journalism, this phenomenon is called access, with newsmakers providing reporters with information and the reporters giving them publicity. I don’t know whether the reporters are more like the ants or the tree. You can figure that one out.
What I do know is that journalists’ desire for access to newsmakers often makes them behave in ways that don’t benefit a third stakeholder: the public. Cynical politicians know they can use “exclusives” to spin reporters and make them more compliant. Indeed, access has become an addiction in political journalism.
The addiction to access explains CNN host Dana Bash’s behavior Sunday when Dr. Mehmet Oz, the Medicare and Medicaid chief, pretended the Trump regime’s anti-vaccine stand had nothing to do with the current measles outbreak. Bash let out a mild “Oh, come on,” but let him keep dissembling, and ended with, “Thank you so much for being here.”
The addiction to access is why the New York Times got giddy last month about Donald Trump giving its reporters a two-hour interview. The NYT’s excitement was so pronounced that it published a sidebar about its preparations for the interview, telling readers that one reporter “stopped in for a haircut” at a barber shop beforehand, and another reporter wore “something sentimental: a gold tie clip that belonged to his grandfather.” In another sidebar, the NYT wrote about “the many faces of Trump,” saying he “played the part of the gracious host, pushing a button that summoned a valet bearing waters and Diet Coke.”
The addiction to access is why CBS News editor-in-chief Bari Weiss’ “main concern” in covering the Trump regime is “being able to book its main players on her network’s shows,” according to an insider interviewed by the New Yorker recently.
The addiction to access is why White House reporters showed up as usual after the Associated Press was kicked out of briefings for calling the Gulf of Mexico by its correct name.
The addiction to access is why no correspondent immediately spoke up in defense of a reporter when Trump called her “piggy,” or when Trump criticized another reporter for not smiling as she asked him about child rapist Jeffrey Epstein.
The addiction to access explains why NBC’s Tom Llamas, in a nearly hourlong interview with Trump last week, did not ask a single question about Jeffrey Epstein. He did ask: “If you look at the polls, most Americans say that they don’t like how you’ve handled immigration, right, especially what’s happening in Minneapolis. How do you change their minds?” Not: Why don’t you stop shooting people? But in effect: How do you convince them it’s OK to shoot people?
The addiction to access is why Fox News coordinates its lies so closely with Trump’s: It’s an obvious ants-and-acacia-tree arrangement in which Fox covers up for Trump and Trump gifts Fox with regular mini-exclusives. For example, Trump appeared on “Fox & Friends” and announced an arrest in the Charlie Kirk assassination: “I just heard about it five minutes before I walked in. ... They have the person that they wanted. So you have breaking news, don’t you? You always have breaking news, Ainsley [Earhardt]. Sean [Hannity] is going to be very disappointed that we’re not doing it on his show.”
The addiction to access may have compelled ABC News to pay $15 million to Trump’s presidential library to settle a lawsuit it could have won. And sure enough, ABC then got an exclusive Oval Office interview with Trump early in his second term.
One of the smartest tactics of the Trump regime is providing heaping helpings of social posts and video appearances that can be processed by the media to fill their TV shows and websites. Chief Trump liar Karoline Leavitt calls this “transparency,” but in fact, it just gives his propaganda a wider audience.
Reporters don’t have to be this needy. They could find other people to talk to who aren’t officially tasked with lying. They’ve even done so on occasion. The Trump regime tried to intimidate reporters who cover the military by imposing new access rules. Instead, the vast majority of journalists – including even Fox News – left the Pentagon rather than agree to rules that they be accompanied by official escorts while in the building and risk expulsion should they report information not approved by Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth for release.
Reporters have managed to write revealing stories about Trump’s military adventurism in Venezuela and elsewhere despite the lack of access. Maybe it’s been more difficult, but it probably leads reporters to more facts and less spin.
Good journalism thrives on a hard-nosed relationship with newsmakers. Bad journalism makes reporters into collaborators with the newsmakers they cover.
This week’s media atrocity
The choice is easy this week: The Washington Post’s layoffs of about a third of its staff is the further trashing of an iconic news outlet by billionaire owner Jeff Bezos, who could easily afford to operate the Post at a loss and still keep his $500 million yacht. I gave up on the Post last summer when it was obvious that Bezos was using it to placate Trump and protect his other businesses, such as Amazon and Blue Origin.
When the layoffs came down, Bezos and publisher Will Lewis showed themselves to be loathsome cowards by failing to address the staff, leaving their underlings to do it. A few days later, Lewis resigned with an announcement referring to “two years of transformation.” That’s quite a euphemism for vandalism.
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Mark, you hit every nail on the head regarding the media selling its soul , and enriching Trump through ridiculous lawsuits for access. Thank you
Great piece Agree that this is one of the top two or three reasons why democracy is in peril. But can I ask: Is there evidence that the public will choose accurate news reports over reports that feature a celebrity guest?